223329 A collaboration between the University of Namibia and the University of Washington to strengthen graduate public health education

Wednesday, November 10, 2010 : 11:42 AM - 12:00 PM

Amy Hagopian, PhD , School of Public Health, Dept of Global Health, University of Washington, Seattle, WA
Agnes Van Dyk, PhD , University of Namibia, Pionierspark, Windhoek, Namibia
Virginia Gonzales, EdD , International Training and Education Center for Health, University of Washington, Seattle, WA
Sara Wood, MPH , International Health Program, School of Public Health and Community Medicine, University of Washington, Windhoek, Namibia
Ann Downer, EdD, MS , Department of Global Health, University of Washington, Seattle, WA
     
The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) calls for the training of 140,000 new health care workers in low-income settings. With PEPFAR support through the US CDC and HRSA, the University of Namibia (UNAM), the University of Washington (UW), and the UW's local office of the International Training and Education Center for Health (I-TECH), developed a partnership to address this need through strengthening the UNAM Master of Public Health (MPH) degree program.

The five-year project is designed to 1) provide a master's level program in Health Policy, Management and Leadership and certificate programs in Nutrition and Strategic Information; 2) attract non-traditional students into MPH training; 3) increase the integration of HIV/AIDS material into the curriculum; and 4) expand the number and expertise of people available to work in public health in Namibia.

UW and UNAM faculty have worked collaboratively to plan exchanges, host sabbaticals, meet with other university partners in Southern Africa, provide faculty development opportunities in order to support publication and promotion, and offer new courses. They also worked together to improve support for students doing thesis work and redesigned the MPH thesis guidelines.

Namibia is Africa's most recently independent nation and UNAM its first national university. Institutional collaborations such as this offer important lessons on working across borders, academic traditions, and cultures. They show a link between graduate training and increased capacity for supporting national health systems, and they teach us new ways to view and improve graduate public health education in the US.

Learning Areas:
Public health or related education

Learning Objectives:
1) Analyze the components of a partnership between a public university in Washington State and a public university in Namibia to strengthen MPH training 2) Assess the successes and challenges of public health graduate-level training in resource-limited settings

Keywords: Health Workers Training, Partnerships

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I oversee and coordinate programmes such as research design and methods for public health, disease control and treatment programmes.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

Back to: 5115.0: Training, human resource development and workforce issues